Before the Traitor Sleeps
by Bankrobber
Summary: Harkat and Kurda have a discussion about Harkat's past.


**Disclaimer**: I own none of the characters (except the briefly-mentioned woman). In fact, I'll just say everything in here belongs to Darren Shan. Just to be safe. With the exception of the poem - it is the final quatrain of 'Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening' by the poet Robert Frost.

Enjoy!

* * *

There was a storm coming in; Kurda knew because of the way the sunlight still swept the ground yet was absent from all else - the most peculiar landscape, both joyful and ominous.

He often crept away from the rushing testosterone-fueled activity of Vampire Mountain, did Kurda, to sneak up here where all sound was the trickling of a stream and the whispering wind. It presented him with a magnificent view: beneath him sat the great tall mountain in which the vampires resided. And a few short climbs below, he knew, were the hiding vampaneze, here to make peace with the former clan, brought here with the aid of the maps Kurda himself had crafted. If things went wrong, and wrongness was entirely probable, Kurda knew that what ensued would be the mother of all storms. Forget thunder, lightning and rain; what this storm brought would be the flowing of blood and the sailing of limbs. Kurda sighed, to think of the mountainous risk his quest for peace implied, and patted the mountain-ledge on which he was seated.

Here, he liked to watch the clouds move across the sky. He felt small and unimportant here. It was the grandest privilege.

Come, Kurda, he thought to himself. The search for Darren is still ongoing, but you have many things to do.

Then he stopped, because the way he had phrased that thought reminded him of a poem a human woman had read to him on her deathbed once, with his head in her lap and her fingertips brushing his hair from his face as he silently wept.

_'The woods are lovely, dark and deep,_  
_But I have promises to keep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep,_  
_And miles to go before I sleep.'_

She'd bent down and planted a long kiss on his cheek. Her lips had not wanted to leave it ... no ... so long ... so many years since she'd laid eyes on her Kurda ...

He sighed again and rose to his feet.

* * *

Forty hours to the investiture.

Harkat, who had not rested a minute since Darren's escape from his cell, was having even more difficulty breathing than he normally did.

"Mr. ... Crepsley ... how ... was ..." and here he stopped to sit down, leaning his shoulder against a wall. The two vampires before him frowned down at him.

"Harkat, you are worn out," said Larten Crepsley, casting his eyes over the Little Person. "The search was unsuccessful - I was expecting no other result. There will be another later tonight, but you will be missing it." A pause. "Go and sleep; you need rest."

"No!" barked Harkat. "I must ... search. For ... Darren."

"I believe Larten is right," said Seba Nile, gently. "The search party tonight will be manned by no less than sixteen vampires led by Vanez Blane; I see no reason why you must be there, Harkat."

"Because ... be ... cause ... it ..." The sentence went uncompleted.

Larten, already fatigued from the search and worried beyond all logic about his missing assistant (who had caused such uproar on his very first visit to the Mountain), opened his mouth to snap. But the elderly vampire calmed him with a hand on the shoulder.

"Harkat, if you rest tonight - and you need it very much - I promise that you shall have the responsibility of leading the next search party tomorrow."

Harkat hesitated.

"I promise," Seba repeated.

He let out a strange, shuddering sound that was presumably a sigh that lacked breath. And stood.

"I must ... find ... Darren ... at ... any cost ..."

And the Little Person limped away from the two vampires. What they did not hear was him finishing his earlier sentence: "Because it ... is _my_ ... fault ..."

Later that night, before the departure of the third search party, Harkat was drowning his sorrows in the Hall of Perta vin-Grahl. There was no vampire in there with him; they were all out there, either preparing for Kurda Smahlt's investiture as Vampire Prince, dining in the Hall of Khledon Lurt, or searching ... hunting ... for Darren.

Once out of range of the ice-cold waterfall, Harkat toweled himself dry and dressed. The chilly water had removed what little fatigue he'd felt, and he was doubtful still of the need to sleep. He missed the sight of the moon, for Harkat was unused to living in such dark enclosed spaces as the Mountain offered. The Cirque du Freak had been all open space, with the exception of the tents and caravans they brought with them wherever they went. It was a lifestyle that Harkat had treasured, though admittedly lacking adventure.

Perhaps what he needed was a moment in open space. Far from the worries of Vampire Mountain, yet close enough to still be a part of the ever-spinning drama.

Harkat went walking.

* * *

Kurda had not expected to meet the Little Person on his way back through the tunnels. His eyebrows rose as he took in the peculiar sight of Harkat Mulds, his great green eyes swimming with unfathomable thought, standing in the middle of a tunnel so far known only to the soon-to-be Prince.

"Harkat," coughed Kurda - the roof of the tunnel had a tendency to shed dusty earth. "What are you doing here?"

"Needed ... fresh air," was the response. "Know ... any way ... out ... of here?"

Kurda stared him down, understanding that he was lost. Several beats passed in which Kurda did not understand what was going on in his heart and mind.

"I'll show you," he offered.

He led Harkat to an exit far from the one below which the vampaneze had concealed themselves. There, near the mountain-top, they sat, observing the waxing moon hiding behind a cirrus cloud.

"Harkat, I," Kurda began.

Harkat turned his face to him. Those terrifying green pools seemed to know all about him.

"I worry," he continued. "About Darren."

"So ... do I."

"No, you don't understand," Kurda said, his voice thick with agitation. "Darren is not safe anywhere now. He is damned." A fist slammed against a knee. "He has been since Larten blooded him. And now that no one knows where he is, there's little to no chance of his survival. I find myself pacing my room when I dwell on it."

"Why?"

"'Why', Harkat? For goodness' sake, because he's just a boy! He is supposed to be with his family. Playing with his friends. Learning. He's not supposed to be out here in the wild lands, he'll never cope." Kurda was wringing his hands.

"I worry more ... about ... him ... dying ... out there. I think ... everyone ... worries ... about that."

Kurda sighed and ran his hands through his hair in intense frustration. "You're right. I'm panicking about the wrong things. You're absolutely right."

Harkat's eyes were still fixed on him. Kurda went on.

"From the very moment I met Darren, he's reminded me of myself ... myself as a boy. I was blooded when I was just a little older than him, you know. A boy with a library of books and maps and no belief in such a creature that I am now. All my dreams dashed, yet all these new possibilities opening up."

Silence.

"I ... was the same."

"What?"

Kurda whipped his head around to look at Harkat. He understood that as a creature of Des Tiny's making, the Little Person's backstory was shrouded in mysteries even Harkat did not understand, but this seemed to imply that there was a little that the latter did, indeed, know, or remember. "Harkat, you remember your past?"

Harkat seemed surprised.

"I'm good friends with Mr. Tall," said Kurda with a frown. "He told me once, that the Little People used to be humans. Harkat, do you mean you used to be a vampire?"

A shake of the head answered his question. "I ... remember ... nothing. Only ... briefly ... the vaguest images ... and feelings ... and ... thoughts."

"Can you recount any of them?"

If Harkat were human, he would have been frowning. As he was now, the light behind his great green eyes grew a little brighter. "Before ... I ... sleep ..."

"Beg pardon?" Something stirred in Kurda's distant memory. His heartbeat had picked up on a most unusual rhythm.

But Harkat seemed unaware of what he was even feeling, or thinking. "Seba said ... I ... must ... sleep." And he stood. "But ... before ... I ... go ... I remember ... Mr. Tiny ... said ... something ..."

"Said what? Said what?"

"Mr. Tiny ... said ... that ... my visit ... among ... the vampires ... this time ... will not ... end ... well."

On that ominous note, Harkat Mulds left Kurda Smahlt to some frightening new thoughts.

* * *

_Kurda … You are sleeping … Wake up, my love …_

Tears spilled forth from somewhere behind his lower lashline. Kurda shook his head mutely. No, he would give anything to only be dreaming, but it was reality that had struck him such a mute blow, and it was real people who had sentenced him to death and who were walking him to the Hall of Death right now. After all his strongest, most heartbreaking efforts, it had all failed …

The fear in his heart was indescribable. How astonishing that he had not particularly enjoyed his life for the past hundred years or so, yet still feared death so much! Only now, being escorted to his shameful execution, did Kurda come to the realisation that his whole life had been an inexplicable attempt to make everything _better_, with all his books and maps and treaties, when in the beginning he'd had it all to begin with.

"_Motina_," he muttered, letting a sigh escape him.

"What was that?" the guard on his right half-snapped. A mixture of resentment and respect; something Kurda was not used to receiving.

This brief episode did not resurface, for Kurda said nothing until he was inside the cage in the Hall of Death.

"_Motina_," he repeated, "_Motina_, _Motina_, _Motina_!" The vampires who'd assembled there watched in awestruck silence as the normally collected Kurda Smahlt fell to his knees in the cage and wept with all his spirit.

"What's he saying?" Arrow muttered to Mika Ver Leth, whose face was uncharacteristically filled with great sadness.

Mika was silent.

"What is he saying, Mika?" Paris Skyle pressed.

"He is saying, 'Mother'."

After the disgraced vampire's sobs finally subsided, the cage was slowly raised above the pit of stakes. All that stood between him and his demise now was a taut rope, held in place by a guard.

"Mama," Kurda whispered. "I went every mile and now I shall sleep."

The guard let go of the rope.

* * *

**Did you like it? Yes, I made Kurda a Lithuanian. :3 The reason Mika understands him is because in my mind, Mika is also Lithuanian. I hope I didn't embarrass myself with any mistakes; it was a translator I used and we all know how those tend to screw up. **

**Apologies for the length; I felt Kurda deserved a long fanfiction. **

**Please leave a review and thanks for reading!**


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